Medical articles today

Nightly bouts of interrupted, oxygen-deprived sleep from a collapsed airway in the upper neck raises the chances of dying in middle-aged to elderly people by as much as 46 percent in the most severe cases, according to a landmark study on sleep apnea by lung experts at Johns Hopkins and six other U.S. medical centers. Even in people with moderate forms of the sleeping disorder, with anywhere from 15 to 30 episodes of interrupted breathing during each hour of supposed rest, risk of death jumps 17 percent. The ongoing study is believed to be the largest ever conducted into sleep and related illnesses, with the latest report taking more than a decade to complete.

Older people who reported sleeping for more than nine hours in each 24 hours and feeling sleepy during the day were more likely to develop dementia according to new research The study of more than 3, 000 people in Spain investigated the correlation between sleep patterns and the development of dementia over a three year period. While sleeping longer than normal resulted in an increased association, there was no direct link found between sleeping less than normal (six hours or less in 24 hours) and developing dementia. 'This report suggests that sleeping longer than normal and feeling sleepy during the day is a sign of developing dementia. There is no apparent physiological link and it is unlikely that sleeping more than normal is a direct risk factor for dementia.

Sleep patterns can help predict which adolescents might be at greatest risk for developing depression, a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center has found in a five-year study. Sleep is a biological factor known to be associated with adult depression. Depressed adults experience rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep earlier in the sleep cycle than people who are not depressed. Until this study, available online and in Neuropsychopharmacology, it had been unclear whether this relationship held true in adolescents. Dr. Uma Rao, professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern and lead author of the study, found that adolescents with a familial risk for depression but without a depression diagnosis experienced shorter REM latency, meaning they reached the REM stage more quickly.

A study, "Sibling risk of Pediatric Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome and Adenotonsillar Hypertrophy, " in the Aug. 1 issue of the journal SLEEP indicates that children have an increased risk of developing obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) if they have at least one sibling who has been diagnosed with the sleep disorder. Results indicate that after accounting for socioeconomic status, age, and geographic region, the sibling risk of pediatric OSA was extremely high, with a standardized incidence ratio of 33.2 in boys and 40.5 in girls who had at least one sibling with an OSA diagnosis. A total of 854 boys and 627 girls who were 18 years of age or younger had a first hospital diagnosis of pediatric OSA during the study period;

Starting or returning to school can stir up a bevy of emotions with a range of effects, from bothersome to debilitating. Knowing a little bit about a few of these problems helps parents and children manage and overcome them. School phobia extreme anxiety from going to school or even talking about it. Causes could range from being bullied to grieving for a lost pet. Reassure the child that fear is normal, remind him of good things in school, and don't give in to a desire to stay home. Separation anxiety afraid of being without mom or dad can be paralyzing and have long-term effects. Focus on fun things, provide rewards and be consistent about leaving your child or he won't learn that anxiety is temporary.

Even with growing progress toward gender equality in the workplace, women continue to carry the most responsibility for family care, a load that according to a new study could indicate why women report more sleep disruption than men. The research led by David Maume, a University of Cincinnati professor of sociology and director of the UC Kunz Center for Research in Work, Family and Gender, UC graduate student Rachel A. Sebastian and Miami University (Ohio) graduate student Anthony R. Bardo, was presented Aug. 10 at the 104th annual meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA) in San Francisco. Health researchers have traditionally dominated the field of sleep research, examining biological differences and their effects on sleep patterns.